In The Beginning Was The Word?

The Inside Story of Information: Part 1

 Wisdom

By Menzi Maseko ©

“Much of the bafflement about life is due to confusion in the meaning of terms like order, organisation, entropy, chance, randomness, information and complexity. These words are frequently employed in a slipshod or ambiguous way, without any proper definition. In particular, order and organisation are often conflated.” 
– (Page 98, Paul Davies,The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the origin of life)

“Why is there God? “ The answer popped into his head the way some lines of poetry occurred to him. “Information, not decisions.”

“Cannot God make decisions?”

“God is the source of information, not of decisions. Decisions are human. If God makes decisions, they are human decisions.” 
– (Page 107, The Jesus Incident, Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom)

Ever-since I was a youth I had just one special prayer, one specific request to God, the God of my parent(s). I continuously asked Him to favour me with Wisdom. Having read countless times about the stories of the judges, kings and the prophets of Israel, I was quite clear that I needed a type of Wisdom which surpassed that of the likes of Solomon. I have since lost count of how many times I placed all my faith in the Unseen Jehovah and at the cross of His Son Jesus, absolutely convinced that my heartfelt cries would be answered sooner than later.

And so I went on about my life, attending school, church and cautiously doing what other ‘born again’ young people did, but my hobbies included writing Poetry and songs. But I kept on waiting, and waiting and waiting for my miracle to arrive. Having heard somewhere that God helps those who help themselves; I also began to help myself to all kinds of knowledge which of course also included the carnal type. 
In my mid-teens I also began reading intensely anything that even slightly resembled my elusive first Love, the highly praiseworthy Wisdom. Everything that I could find interesting, from mostly African and African-American novels, historical and futurist books; I read about the creation stories from other traditions besides the biblical ones that I found available at home. Later on I found myself inclined towards the various branches of Pan-Africanism.

I happened upon the Poetry, essays and plays of NgugiWaThiongo such as Decolonising The Mind, Pen-points and Gun-points, I Will Marry When I Want, and my personal favourite, The Black Hermit. I read the polemics of Leopold Senghor, Mongo Beti, Franz Fanon, AimeCesaire, Langston Hughes, Assata Shakur, NtozakheShange, Bessie Head, Mongane Wally Serote, Amos Toutoula, Amos Oz, Naguib Mahfouz, B. Kojo Laing, Octavia Butler, James Baldwin, Lewis Nkosi, Njabulo Ndebele, Toni Morrison and countless others.  I learned about the roots, purpose and urgency of Ethiopianism, Negritude, Black Aesthetics, Black Power movements and ultimately came to appreciate and also overstand the lifework of Stephen Bantu Biko.

But was this it? Had I finally arrived at the sacred Oasis, the fountainhead of useful knowledge? Had I finally ‘learned’ to know wisdom by getting myself acquainted with such luminous rhetoricians, storytellers, leaders and beacons of hope? Something within me said, Yes, but not quite!

Perhaps it was my Christian upbringing – my Mother’s fault - that kept on bringing me back to the Bible, the Quran, The Book of Enoch and the KebraNagast. Wisdom seemed to be slipping through my 12 fingers and I had desperately needed Her help, It was in the latter wherein I found these rather unsettling words:

“Wisdom found no dwelling place on earth among the sons of men, so she retreated back to heaven.”

I did not know how to react to this, was I supposed to be happy that no one alive could possess the pure elixir of Wisdom or was I to assume that we are all doomed – forever to do without a proper dose of the Guiding Light? It all appeared like we all better look up to the sky for Wisdom. 

It seems like all kinds of education, listening, research or even experience could not help one to be wise enough and to live in such a way as to give accurate direction to the wayward Self and bestow upon the next generation. I had begun to believe that Faith is all I needed, thinking that all one needs is enough skills and information to conduct a (Spiritually and Materially) well-balanced life.

But then again, if the Ancients say that wisdom could not be found among men, perhaps I still had hope finding It among Women. So then, when I began meditating about the intrinsic value and the meaning of the girls, women (lovers, strangers, soul-mates), aunts, and grannies that have been and continue to be in my life, I began to realize that Wisdom never really left for good, she flew away because of the foolishness that many men have been doing on earth. The deeper I meditate, the more I listened to the less reasonable part of my self, the better informed I become. And so I have made a quality decision, I am going to honour the Woman in me, the Auset/Isis/Het-Heru/Sekhmet, the Ma, the Yin, the Omega, The Lioness, the Gogo and the Beloved in my life with all my strength and all the energy invested in me.

NB. “The heart never speaks, but you must listen to it to know.”– The Oracle (The Black Woman in the Matrix Trilogy)

Menzi Maseko ©

The Story of Information: Part 2

Inevitability

By Menzi Maseko ©

“The total failure of Marxism … and the dramatic break-up of the soviet Union are only the precursors to the collapse of Western liberation, the main current of modernity. Far from being the alternative to Marxism and the reigning ideology at the end of history, liberalism will be the next domino to fall.”

 – Takeshi Umehara (Japanese political analyst)

“These deep and abiding differences between the capitalism of Japan and that of England and America mark a fundamental truth. Both the supporters and the critics of capitalism have fastened on individualism as one of its central features. But the connections between capitalism and individualism are neither necessary nor universal: they are historical accidents. The early theorists of capitalism – Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Karl Marx, Max Weber and John Stuart Mill – mistook them for universal laws because the evidence on which they based their theories was for the most part limited to a few western countries.”

–(Page 170, False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism by John Gray)

It is safe to say that a lot of what is called Western civilisation, modernisation and indeed most of what they call enlightened philosophy and reason is largely based on misinformation. To say that it is centred on a false premise would be putting it mildly. There is hardly anything mild or negligible though, when it comes to counting the costs of this misinformation on the rest of humanity. The negative consequence of basing a whole civilization on lies, deliberate half-truths, omissions and conscientious propagation of distorted information is diabolical mayhem. Such is the world we find ourselves having to endure today under the tyrannical tutelage of neo-liberal democracy. Not only are we trained to live a lie, we are also encouraged to build a future upon its dubious foundation.

When John Gray’s book (quoted here) was first published it was seen as a pessimistic and even nihilistic work by many reviewers, who clearly revealed themselves as the architects and gatekeepers of neo-liberal capitalism. Yet its message was well thought-out, researched and executed. But this was a typically arrogant reaction to the truth by the defenders of the lie.

One of the reviewers, an aptly named Prospect has this to say on the sleeve of the book; using meticulously selected phrasing:

“A sustained attempt to explore the possibility of reconciling justice and social cohesion, while dispensing with the idea that reason alone can solve the problems of political life…Gray’s new book on international capitalism portrays the age of free-trade and globalisation as a False Dawn.”

I would assume that Prospect is some kind of media or academic publishing institution and that their balancing act of a statement, strove to not injure the sensitive conscience of their liberal readers and patrons. After all, you can’t bite the hand that feed you.

Now when honest readers and publishers read such books that tell of the delusions and deleterious nature United States and United Kingdom styled capitalism, they should only be glad, happy that someone dares to call a spade a spade instead of a pitchfork. Not only is it refreshing to see a clear and unbiased refutation of the myth of liberalism - western democratic capitalism; it is a sign that the unequal and unsustainable world as we know it can and will surely end. It is inevitable.

From False Dawn to True Light

At the inter-Continental Encounter for Humanity &  Against Neo-Liberalism on 1996 in Chiapas; Subcommandante Marco’s of the Zapatista moved said:

“What the Right offers is to turn the world into one big mall where they can buy Indians here, women there…” he fell short of also mentioning Blacks everywhere.

It is well known that black majority is at the bottom of the proverbial totem pole when it comes to global wealth standards. This is true despite the charismatic boasts of the musical superstars such as Jay-Z, Kanye West and the rest. The black condition globally is that of well documented and much publicised wretchedness, even though there are many cases where this is grossly exaggerated and used as a scapegoat to serve white interests and to appease white guilt, it remains a truism.

But this is also a condition that thrives largely on the incorrect and deliberate misuse of information. All the negative images of Africa and indeed all the darker peoples of the world…